Another Day, Another …

By: Jake Jakubuwski

Copyright, 2013. All rights reserved

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas A. Edison

When I first moved to Florida in the early 60’s, one of the jobs that I had was as a tour guide at the Edison Home and Botanical Gardens in Fort Myers. This was Edison’s “winter” vacation home and next door to the Edison Home, Henry Ford had an estate.

Harvey Firestone, George Westinghouse and John Burroughs, who was a famous naturalist and essayist, also had homes in and around Ft.Myers.

During the first part of the twentieth century,Ft.Myers was a favored winter vacation spot for many of the industrialists and corporate leaders inAmerica. But, as far as I know, Thomas A. Edison was the only one of the group that actually brought his “work” with him when he came to Fort Myers. In fact, he literally brought his home with him as a prefabricated home that was shipped in by steamer and assembled on the shores of the Caloosahatchee River; just to the west of the original “downtown” Ft.Myers. Along with assembling his home, he built his laboratory and planted his gardens.

His laboratory was where he conducted his experiments when he was in town; and the gardens were used to grow many of the plants, flowers and trees that he used in his various experiments.

One of the “highlights” of the Edison tour was a visit and limited exploration of his laboratory where you could see many of the bottles, test tubes and other paraphernalia and machinery that Edison (and his “workers”) used to “discover” and perfect many of his ‘inventions”.

Interestingly, Edison never saw himself as a scientist but more as a discoverer and manufacturer. His approach to inventing something (Like the tungsten filament for the electric light bulb) was to keep trying different things until he found one that worked.

He tested over a thousand different materials — from bamboo to goldenrod — as a filament for the light bulb before he discovered that tungsten was the material he was looking for. His “track record” of things that didn’t work was, by far, larger then the things he discovered that did work.

With just the light bulb alone what would have happened if he gave up his search at the 999th failure?

Anyway, when one of my “customers” emailed me the above quote as a sig line to their email, I thought back to those days when I would guide “snowbirds” through the home and gardens and give them the “spiel” about Edison and his life in Fort Myers.

Among the many things thatEdison invented was a form for a concrete house that, according to the patter we learned, was complete down to fireplace mantels and decorative filigree around the doors.Edison developed that idea for his buddy, Ford — who was trying to find a quick and easy way to build housing for his employees as a means of stonewalling the unions that were trying to organize his factories.

Edison’s phonograph became one of the most sought after “luxuries” in homes from the very wealthy to the hard scrabble coal miner inWest Virginia.

His stock ticker changed the face of stock market trading. He patented a better way to preserve fruit, an automatic chemical telegraph which might be considered a forerunner of the fax machine.

Edison left school while in the third grade and began selling newspapers on the railway cars of his day. He grew to be a man who simply did not believe that something could not be done and was willing to fail at his attempts to make something work until he found the solution he was looking for.

In my opinion, that’s grit, creativity, determination and believing there was no such concept as “It can’t be done.”

An interesting observation is this: Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone and John Burroughs each had the same number of hours in their day as we have in ours.

What are we doing with our allotment of time?

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Visit: http://www.purejake.com/catalog/ and check my books, booklets, videos and PowerPoint presentations. You will find locksmith and security books as well as self-help books and technical and non-technical stuff…if you don’t find anything that interests you, maybe you know someone who could use one or more of those goodies. If so, give ’em my link!

CRAFT SHOW! CRAFT SHOW! CRAFT SHOW!

Saturday, November 17th, the Granville County Senior Center will hold their annual craft show from 10AM to 3PM.

The craft show will be held at the Granville County Senior Center’s NEW location at 119 Williamsboro St. (In the Hilltop Shopping Center on US 158 West). Plenty of free parking and lots of great bargains.

For more information, call the Granville County Senior Center, Monday through Friday (8;00 am to 5:00pm) at 919-693-1930

About Jake

Jake Jakubuwski is internationally known as an author, lecturer, teacher and technical editor for The National Locksmith magazine.

In addition to his expertise in the physical security industry, Jake has authored hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles – along with numerous books - on subjects as diverse as cabinetry, counter tops, carpet cleaning, industrial coatings, sales and marketing, flea marketing, and self-help, inspirational and instructional books.

Jake and his wife Christie live in North Carolina where Jake now writes full-time.

Kind Words

There seems to be something spiritual when a man with all of Jake’s knowledge and experience can continue to help people like me, who are just starting out, even after he has passed. I find it all very inspiring.